Transformers USB Flash Memory Drive 32gb review

The team up that no one has demanded, but should have.

As a man who grew up loving the first generation of Transformer cartoons, I have fond memories where I wished for Blaster to have been an actual working radio. How awesome would that have been back in the eighties to have been able to pop Ravage into Soundwave and having the ability to record and play back music?

Imagine my surprise when one day cruising Amazon, I ran into an updated design of "Ravage" as a working USB thumb drive instead of (for obvious reasons) a cassette tape. Not believing my own eyes, I saw that this device has 32gb's of flash storage and actually transforms to a working USB drive and back to panther mode. Without hesitation I placed my order, paid my $19.99, and a few days later my package arrived.

"Ravage" in "Panther" mode.

"Ravage in "Thumb drive" mode

The first thing that I noticed was the cheap overall build of this device. The joints are loose, and the USB tip can be easily be broken by accident if you're not careful with it. The weight comes in at 24g and feels extremely light and hollow. This is obviously a cheap knock off based on a nostalgic design, however the fanboy in me did not care as the novelty was still going strong at the time.

Out of the box, the usable space on this drive is 31.3 GB (formatted as FAT32) and is rated as a USB 2.0 device. Of course being curious about the performance of this device I put the transfer speeds to the test. Connecting the device to a USB 3.0 port on my i7 desktop, I averaged between 7.95 MB/s to 19 MB/s with a total of 14.1 GB's worth of various files copied from the drive to my PC.

Write speeds to the device are a totally different story. Copying less than 2gb's of files the speeds ranged from 2 MB/s to just over 5 MB/s and according to Windows 8 pro was to take 10 minutes.

Overall, this device is more a conversational piece than it is a practical day to day device for hard core use. I suspect that the cheap and slow memory would not have a very long life with constant use and all but the most careful of enthusiasts would be able to keep from breaking this device by accident with repeated transformations.

Source: Amazon.com

Comments

Retron 5 hacked to launch RetroArch and play ROMS off your SD card

It appears that a someone going by the screenname of RetroN Labo on Youtube has successfully hacked the Retron 5 console to run the full version of Retroarch. In the video shown, various emulators that are not part of the original firmware are playable including the PC Engine, Playstation One, Nintendo DS, and Wonderswan. As the stock firmware from the Retron 5 is programmed to load games from an original cartridge when it is inserted, this hack appears to run ROM and ISO files, most likely from the SD card slot built into the back of the console. In most of instances shown in the video, emulation appeared to run smooth, and the games previewed looked playable. Currently, Hyperkin (Retron 5 manufacturer) is in hot water with Retroarch's creators due to using their emulator cores without permission. After being discovered, Hyperkin has shared their code, and claims that they have removed any infringing code from their console. The Retroarch group feels diffe

Clean up your Facebook activity log with Absterge

Lifesperience is now Raycommend, which can be found here: Ray Commend Facebook is a platform that tends to elicit many different reactions from people when asked. Whether you love it or hate it, every day millions of people from all over the world and all walks of life log on to the site or one of its various apps to catch up with family and friends. As the years go by, one tends to build up a lot of content and in the case of many, some embarrassing content can be buried deep within your timeline. The fact that Facebook's settings can be confusing, even though they have tried to simplify them does not help. We're now in a day and age where many employers look at Facebook accounts long before they consider hiring you, so how does one clean up without spending hours manually clicking on on timeline icons? Enter the Absterge script. According to the Absterge page: "Absterge works such that a user logs in to the Facebook Timeline, and navigates to the

Your Wii's second life as an emulation and media center powerhouse

Lifesperience is now Raycommend, which can be found here: Ray Commend While the Wii was initially a very popular console for Nintendo, for most people, it has gone unused for years gathering dust. More powerful consoles and devices have taken its place and even Nintendo themselves have practically abandoned it with many of their own channels going offline over the last year. Chances are that by this point, your Wii is long out of its warranty period. If you're willing to take about an hour of your time, you can turn your old Wii into a great emulation station and decent media center for the kids. The things that you will need to get the most out of your old Wii console are: An SD card (up to 32gb) An internet connection The first thing that you will need to do is softmod your console which will allow it to run unsigned software outside of Nintendo's ecosystem. Yes! One of the great things about the Wii (for our purposes) is that you don't need t

Lifesperience

Search This Blog